Debate continued today about the male-dominated “Art Madness” competition created by Tyler Green on his ArtInfo blog, Modern Art Notes. Yesterday on Two Coats, artist Brian Dupont’s excellent essay addressed the implications of the Green Team’s nearly all-white-male selection, but Green suggested that complainers create their own lists (each of Green’s panelists selected 32 artworks) before casting stones. Green contended that the final list, which ranks the top sixty-four artworks created since 1945, is about artwork not artists, and that there just aren’t as many specific pieces by women artists that fall into the “masterpiece” category, thus there are more men. Study the lists below and one thing is clear: ranking artwork is about the people who are doing the ranking–not about the artwork itself. Note: If I get more lists, I’ll post them tomorrow. And I’ll continue adding links for the less familiar pieces listed.

Jennifer Dalton‘s ListDalton (@jen_dalton on Twitter) is the Brooklyn artist who began questioning Tyler Green’s list on Twitter earlier in the week.
This was a very productive exercise for me personally, and gave me an opportunity to think hard about what qualities I value in individual artworks, but I think that is all it does. These are the 32 most important individual artworks for me and my personal artistic practice that I can think of at this moment. As many others have said about this exercise, tomorrow it would likely be different.

The degree to which I resist calling these “the greatest works of art of the last 65 years” is the degree to which I would also challenge the lists of the “experts” on the same premise. This exercise exposes the false objectivity, false hierarchy and false certainty embedded in the narrative of greatness. In particular, the conception of artistic achievement in terms of single “master”pieces is a crucial flaw if the goal is to identify artistic importance. It privileges a certain type of brilliant, amazing and important work over other equally or even more important work in a way that does not feel truthful. I post this list as the fruit of my labor, but it is impossible for me to accept my own list of the “greatest” works that does not include Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Alice Neel, or Donald Judd, just because I can’t pick one single work by these artists that has had as big an impact on me as the other more stand-alone works that clawed their way onto my list. So. That being said….

Joanie Gagnon San Chirico‘s ListGagnon San Chirico, AKA @JoanieStudio, makes art for public spaces.
I know I have some somewhat unknown artists in here, but I think that’s important too since so many women artists were marginalized (and still are). My choices are about intent. I’ve seen many of these in person and they moved/influenced me. oh….plus 3 token men

Maritza Ruiz Kim‘s ListKim is a San Francisco Bay area artist who goes by @marzkim on Twitter.
Here’s my list; I can’t even say that it’s the order of my favorite artworks or that it’s focused on what should be in the larger “greatest artworks” list- it’s a mixture of ones that were important to my development as an artist, as well as ones I think people should know about, or that I think had an important impact in their time. I skew towards less well known works in some cases. There were so many ways to approach it, I’m even more curious now to know what Tyler Green’s panel thinks about the final result he posted. I’m also very curious about their original lists. Good luck with what you come up with- list making is a bit crazy making. There are many gaps here.

My List (@TwoCoats on Twitter)
It’s Spring Break and I’m trying to get some work done in the studio, but I wanted to contribute another painting-centric list even if it’s somewhat half-assed. I have no idea whether these are the best pieces by these artists, let alone “masterpieces” (I don’t have many artists’ monographs, and judging from JPEGs gets dicey), but the important thing is to think about artists in terms of contemporary influence as opposed to their auction prices. I cribbed from the lists above and then included several additions. I would have liked to include Hans Hoffman, Ellen Gallagher, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik’s work but I just couldn’t determine their best work using online sources. The artwork is listed in no particular order–I simply don’t have the heart to rank artwork and artists.

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19 thoughts on “Part II: Alternate “Art Madness” lists”

Fabulous, and fascinating, thank you. This was fun to do – Just want to add that picking only women was a strategic response – I did toy with the idea of putting three works by men in there to mirror the original list 🙂

Looking over my own list, as well as those of others, makes it clear just how subjective "the canon" really is. My own list is based both on work that as made a lasting impression on me, but also work on that I'm thinking about right now. I plan on providing a further breakdown of my thinking shortly…

Only one of you named a Pollock? (Mine: Blue Poles.) None of you named a de Kooning? (Mine: Woman, 1948) Interesting. In general these lists weren't much interested in the first two decades of the post-war era which is fine, but MAN's version of the rubric explicitly included them. 39 of the 64 works seeded on MAN came from those two decades.

Surprised only one of you had Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen. It was high on my list (though not high enough to make the 32; I was the only one who listed it) and Gray Drape just missed. I think Cathy Opie's first self-portrait may be the most important work of the last 20 years. And I think Andrea Zittel's A-Z West project is 'lumpable' as one thing. Delighted to see Nancy Spero's important Torture of Women on multiple lists. In five years I think Julie Mehretu's Stadia triptych probably would make a similar list (and made mine, as all these listed works did).

Fascinating series of essays and on a very important topic. But, as many here have said, "masterpiece" in the post modern era is very subjective. As far as important women artists go (and this is far from a definitive list) I can think of several names right off the top of my head – Louse Bourgeois, Krasner, Agnes Martin, Lee Bontocou, Grace Hartigan (for a decade or two), Judy Chicago, Katherine Sherwood, Nancy Spero, Kiki Smith, Ida Applebroog, Paula Rego. This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of artists from the third world who are producing magnificent art.

The point should be made that it's not that there are no great women artists (I seem to have read that some place else!) but that few outside the art world know their names.

Tyler, thank you for engaging on this to the extent that you have. It would be great to see your list in its entirety so that we could see how you resolved these hard choices yourself. It gives me no pleasure to be the Chief Pain-In-Your-Ass on this but it must be said that you lose credibility when you hold others to a higher standard of specificity and risk than you will meet yourself.

That said, I appreciate the dialogue and will continue it. I explicitly included the first 20 years of your period (1945-65) in my consideration but one of the things I found out about myself in making this list is that I feel too far removed from those works to think of them as made during our current artistic period. That work seems have been made by a different culture, and it's possible that (for me) that has something to do with the male-centered historical narratives swimming around that work.

Another thing I found out about myself is that I value performance art much more than I would have expected. And I was surprised how much I struggled with painting. Individual paintings had a hard time competing with the other works on my list, even though I would list at least a dozen painters among the most important artists to me.

Of the left-out women's works you cite, Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen is the only one that was seriously in the running for me.

I also have to note something really awesome which is that I read Matthew Langley's list and didn't notice that it was all women until it was noted on twitter. That feels like progress.

Jen: Despite the attempts of some people, this isn't about me. (Or at least it certainly shouldn't be.) Anyone trying to make this about a single person (or six particular people) is looking to blame someone for 65 years of art history rather than to address that history itself. Hence my comment, which is about art, not personalities.

Tyler, I think what you are failing to see is that you and these other 5 people are making this art history that you pretend is a done deal! White and male-centered art historical narratives are something that critics create and reinforce by lists such as the one on your blog. As evidenced by the alternative lists here, there were tons of women making important work throughout this period. That the "experts'" choose to value so much work by men so much more highly is something that needs to be challenged at every level.

Tyler, is it impossible to see how the sausage was made? Even if you can't or won't share your own list of those of the other jurors, it would at least be interesting to see a flat list of works that were mentioned by didn't make the cut-off.

Jen articulates one of my frustrations with the list that I fear I have not communicated well. In the disparity between individual works (paintings) and series of works (Sherman's Film Stills) it feels like some of the individual paintings (Johns, Flags, the various Pollocks and DeKoonings – who did make my list by the way) really benefit from the canonical narrative of art history (and how these works influenced it) in a way that isn't being afforded to women (Louise Bourgeious or Eva Hesse really stand out as examples here).

Brian, that is an interesting wrinkle and it is hard to sort out the effect of the different interpretations of what is "One work." I interpreted the Cindy Sherman Exception as the only way she got on the list at all, since there might not have been much agreement on the best one or two or three of those works.

No one is arguing art history is a done deal. That's a particularly disappointing accusation given that I just spent many hours on a three-part review in which I argued for a specific revisionist approach to a certain section of art history.

In a related story, see my 10-year body of work, not just a 16 percent contribution to one post.

Tyler, you said we were trying to blame critics for art history. As in, which facts critics objectively choose to record and what judgments critics objectively make are not their responsibility. It's hard to imagine how else I could interpret that but I'm open.

Sharon, thanks for a level-headed and pluralistic post. the whole ranking thing seemed to be started as a ploy to raise clicks, and not much else. but this selection is much more about subjective experience and memory of art, and not about the authority on high handing down definitions of significance and historical.

Sometimes I think the gendering in art politics is tricky. Assuming most curators and art professors are more likely to be female today does not cause most exhibitions and publications to be about females. Isn't it too early to be counting who won since the access of women to the art world is really only at the early stages? I'm looking in a more long range sense. I just hope this spat does not exist 100 years from now. What I am thrilled to see is how few picked Koons or Prince, although I'm surprised to see how few picked Mendieta. Looks like the Walker's Olga Viso's attempt at marketing her as an ecohetero goddess hasn't struck a chord. I'd also like to see everyone's list of critics, excluding reviewers like Paddy Johnson, Smith & Saltz, etc.

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